Hello everyone. First, let me say that this might be the most fun I've had playing a group game Survivor, and I believe this is in large part due to the cast. I'd love to run into any one of you in a future game and hopefully we can work together.
This is my sixth Survivor Group game, and my 3rd finals. So please understand that I lack experience compared to others who have played many games over the course of many years. Because I am an extreme introvert by nature, it is difficult for me to socialize as much as one would hope. I see this as a sort of handicap, causing me to fight an uphill battle in every game I play. But I'm here to tell you that it's improving with each game. Never before have I spoken to as many people as I have in this game. There were several times in this game where I ignored my intuition, only to be quite satisfied that deep down, I'd been right all along. A lesson I've learned in this game is to listen to my intuition.
This game, like so many others, was supposed to be simple. I find a happy little majority alliance within my premerge tribe, we dominate the challenges until merge. We take apart the remainder of the opposing team, and then take out the rest of our tribe. Very easy recipe. Everything was going great, but other people had other plans. They had already been forming alliances across tribal lines, where that's something that ruins the fun for me. I prefer to imagine it as if we are two tribes separated by distance. I'll get the hang of this.
I tried my hardest to remain true to my original alliance of Haz, Kara, and Brian. I was dismayed to find that Haz could not be saved after Merge, since I felt like our alliance had done so well during the swap phase. I took a lay of the land to see who would most likely be targeted amongst the original Kavaratti, trying to stick with my original opening strategy. I was safe, and therefore unafraid to be vocal about my target being Brady. Brady called it when he said I was playing a shady game. Where he was concerned, I can see why. I agreed to the alliance, because to have said no would have potentially made me a target unnecessarily. Several times in this game, I've wondered about that road not taken. This was a vote where I was NOT safe due to immunity, and I was dependant what social game I could muster to keep me from being a target.
When Brian left, I was further weakened, but I had to roll with the punches. I had begun talking to more people now that the merge had occured, and felt a little more secure in a few of my new relationships. I was looking to determine who was going to be my next alliance, as the original one of just Kara and I was too small to be effective.
It was here that I started to feel like my dominance in challenges was getting noticed. I was being told by people I trusted that other people were after me. Ok, no problem, I'll just kick it into high gear. Everyone was playing it safe that week, the twist keeping everyone on their toes. So Brendan went as the easy common target. I used this twist to make sure everyone knew I was going to win the challenge, when in truth I had no idea. This was a frequent strategy I used, trying to keep everyone from even bothering to try in the competitions. I also frequently fed out false scores to people I didn't entirely trust, wanting them to pass out the information that my score was actually worse than it was, causing people to stop trying once they got to a certain point.
When Nick left, any hopes I had of forming a majority alliance went along with him. At this stage of the game, i saw Chris and Nick as both equally important to my game. They had given me valuable intel, and I would have their backs in return. I wanted to build this into something, adding Kara of course.
Then, of course, I knew for certain that I had no one in the game. I was alone, and I would need to win every challenge to get to the end. I was stopped by Stephen at F6. I was sure I was done. But lo and behold, some of my social game actually paid off and I got the information I so desperately needed to stay alive in the game. There was a plan for Hoop, Ross, and I to vote Kara, but once Ross let me know he wasn't doing it, I knew I only had two options. Steal the spot from Hoop, or throw in the towel and give up. My position was too wobbly as it was to ask the survivor gods for anything else. I wasn't entirely sure I would even survive that week.
My game was a game of survival. I was everyone's target, and I want you to ask why? You all played the same competitions that I did, and you know just how difficult it was for me to pull off that many immunities. As long as I'm still here, neither of the other finalists can claim to have taken out all of their targets. Even though Chris and Kara weren't true to me, I realized it early enough to stop them. I am the one they could not take down, either physically, strategically, or socially.